Plastic Harem

Dutch filmmakers gathered to make this compilation movie, consisting of 17 segments, as a reaction to the status quo in The Netherlands after the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh on november 2, 2004.

Sisters doing it for themselves in Amsterdam's Red Light District. Louise and Martine Fokkens are identical twins. For over fifty years they were working as prostitutes. They freed themselves from the control of their pimps, ran their own brothel, and set up the first informal trade union for prostitutes. They are familiar faces in Amsterdam's Red Light District, but soon they will bid their farewells. The Ladies Fokkens is a portrait of these remarkable women, as well as a history of the Red Light District over the past fifty years.

This rich essay searches for new ways of being together in the age of social media. We arrange our lives to impress the gaze of others and have become accustomed to being seen. For many young people, however, the party is over. Neoliberalism has made murderous competition the norm; and in the meantime, the planet is dying. Following the unmasking of Facebook’s real motives, more and more people are deleting their Facebook accounts – but this often results in social death. The first image in POSSESSED sets the tone: liquefied lead runs over burning smartphones, followed by images of a devastated neighbourhood in Aleppo. Even the smartphones have not survived the attack. The chains of social media must be cast off, but the perpetual question remains: Who is looking out for you? Academics Alex Williams (University of East Anglia) and Nick Srnicek (King's College London) address this crucial question, along with other issues

Rapidly expanding megacities are a global phenomenon and as a consequence millions of people today live in makeshift constructs they call their homes. Venezuela is Latin America’s most urbanized country, and in the capital Caracas ”informal” cities grow at a dangerous speed up along the ridges of the city. High crime rates and bad sanitary conditions are only some of the problems here. These problems are seen from the point of view of architects and designers in this documentary, which shows inspirational examples of possibilities born when when visions meet reality. The film documents parts of the experimental project called Urban Think Tank, which has substituted drawing board studies with creating solutions in dialogue with the street level. ”In future city planning one has to free oneself from the toolbox of the past” is the architects’ answer to the issues of urbanisation.

About the art explosion in Amsterdam during the 1980's when artists of all sorts found spaces and places and the legendary club RoXY (1987-1999) was created.